Of course the article suggests that that’s essentially the whole purpose of the library: to defend his actions. And another reason is that Jeb might be running for president in 2016 and a lot of PR work needs to be done between now and then. And considering the hubris of the Bushes I think it’s a virtual certainty that he’ll run. Therefore there’s a need to defend Bush’s record after all. Even he admits the need to himself, just not to the general public, not to the citizens he betrayed.

So it’s not for national security reasons or diplomatic reasons that he resists admitting his mistakes and his deceit. All the fiends and enemies of the U.S. are already well aware of the consequences to the U.S. and to the world of Bush’s lies and bungling. He’s just hiding behind the excuse of national security and diplomacy like a kid behind his mother’s skirt. He’s the embodiment of the tale of the emperor who wore no clothes.

As Bob Dylan once said, every president must sometimes have to stand naked. But few American presidents have been as naked as George W. Bush or have had to stand naked before the world in such a big way. Probably the most fitting monument to a president like Bush would be a statue of him standing naked, bent over. Because that’s the side he showed the world. And to be apt it would have to be taller than the Washington monument, because his hubris eclipsed the purpose of the Founding Fathers and dwarfed their wisdom with towering folly. He’s like Ozymandius, in the poem by John Keats, except that instead of two vast and trunkless legs it would be more fitting if all that was left of a statue of Bush ,after similar eons had passed, was a giant butt.

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare